


We Are Drinking Beer at Noon on Tuesday

by whirlpoolsleep



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, canon level wincest assumptions, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 22:05:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9144106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whirlpoolsleep/pseuds/whirlpoolsleep
Summary: Melanie meets Dean while he's having a beer in a bar. She meets Sam after she watches him wash the car. She gets to know them more by what they don't say than what they do.





	

The one good thing about getting up when it’s still dark to get to work before the sun is up is getting off when everyone else is barely clocking out for lunch. She knows it’s sad to walk into The Greatest when the sun is in the middle of the sky and have her drink waiting for her, ice cold and just starting to sweat on the bar. She just doesn’t care.

“Mel! How’s my girl today?” 

Everyday. Every Monday through Friday, Tony greats her the same way, the uncle she never had. She thinks it might be easier if he was her uncle because he’s nice and he smells good and he never judges her coming into his bar on the regular, always stops the new servers from cutting her off too soon. Melanie knows her limit, or at least she’d like to think she does. Maybe it’s the worst comfort in the world for the owner of the deepest dive of a bar in Hawthorne to agree, but her truck runs, her apartment is clean, she puts in her forty hours a week, never misses a day at work or here at the bar and she thinks that kind of reliability has to count for something. 

The Greatest is like Cheers, the place where everyone knows your name. And your job and your family and all your business. Except The Greatest is smoky and it smells like spilt bourbon, dust, and rancid peanuts that no one eats because nobody at The Greatest needs to build up a thirst to order another round. 

He sticks out. He’s on the barstool next to the one she likes to think of as hers and the way he tilts his head and slowly eyes her as she plops down tells her that that he made the mistake of sitting in her spot and Tony had ever so nicely corrected him. Not his fault, how could a stranger know? He’s never been in here before, that’s for sure. He could be beautiful, gorgeous even; curly lashes and freckles delicately fighting against a strong jaw and slightly crooked nose, but there’s something off about him, he’s road weary rage simmering under a lush lipped smile. He’s flirtatious eyes and strong forearms, he’s grimy nails and spiderweb scarred hands gripping his beer too tight like it’ll float away. 

“I’m good, Tony,” Melanie says, “not too many files to fix or sign off on, can’t complain when everyone is actually not fucking up. So today’s first beer is a post work reward, not a substitute for valium.”

“No one takes valium anymore, Mellie,” Tony smirks at her, “you’re dating yourself and the older you act the older I feel.” He’s only twelve years older than her and wearing forty-three really well. Life’s cruel joke is how good unattainable men look with salt and pepper scruff and a few lines around their eyes. “Make a xanax reference like all the hip kids today do.”

The guy next to her schools his grin at their banter so quickly she wonders if she imagined the huff of breath he let out against the mouth of his beer bottle before taking a swig. “I’m Melanie, you can call me Mel, and you’re new here,” she says boldly, jutting out her hand. He may be intimidating but he’s more or less in her home, uninvited and hasn’t bothered introducing himself, Melanie can be a good hostess when she feels up to it, when she hasn’t had to yell about metal detector inspection documents or x-ray scanner modification verifications. Fuck, her job is boring. 

“Dean,” he says as he shakes her hand firmly, “nice to meet you, Mel.” He does that thing men do, that thing where they drag their middle finger across a girl’s palm as they pull out of a handshake, which is sometimes really hot and sometimes really skeevy. She’s not sure where Dean falls, the smarm could be a trap or just a cover, a layer to peel back so you can get to what ticks underneath. “We’re just passing through.” His voice is as whiskey worn as she’d expected. Dean spins in his barstool so he can look out the giant picture window and tips his beer bottle towards the coin car wash across the street. She sees another stranger. He’s washing down a classic car and yeah, Melanie has no idea the make or model, she doesn’t know shit about cars, but she knows pretty when she sees it and this car is stunning. And so is the guy; a broad, broad, so broad back hiding beneath a grey t-shirt that’s not as tight as she’d like and a profile that looks somehow delicate and angular at once. He's polishing the car to a sleek shine, has it looking like it was just driven brand new off the lot the day before, not what had to be somewhere around the half century ago mark. “Nice car, he sure takes good care of his old lady,” she says, trying to sound cooler than she is. 

“I do treat her right,” Dean says, subtle emphasis on the car’s true ownership, “but Sam lost a bet back in Nevada, so this spit shine is all on him. Taught him well enough, though, he knows how to get her wet and rub her just right.” Dean’s smile is back; a bit of teeth, a bit of tongue, a heavy helping of cheap innuendo. 

Melanie watches Dean watch Sam _Samuel, definitely, Sammy, maybe,_ watches as Dean’s eyes track Sam's every move. “Jealous?” she asks, thinking she would be if she was Dean. He obviously takes good care of his car if he’s cashing in a win on a random Tuesday while just ‘passing through’. Having Sam wash her inside and out at a self-service instead of getting him to spring for a spa day at the detail place that’s ten minutes down the street or run her through an automated gas station carwash. Instead, he’s watching Sam make his car gleam in the California sun, huge hands moving strong and sure over chrome and paint, watching Sam in a way that tells her he’s not worried about scratches or scuffs at all.

“Nah. I mean, don’t get me wrong I’d die for my Baby before you can say ‘boo’, but if I had to choose I’d sell her and my soul for that kid right there,” Dean says, tipping his beer to the window once again. His tone is light, but his eyes, holy fuck his eyes are so green now that the daylight is hitting him, look far too serious for Melanie’s comfort, like this theory has been tested and not just once. He swivels back around to face the bar again and she follows his lead, slightly reluctant to stop watching Sam. She can’t see details very well from across the street and inside the bar but something tells her Sam is also beautiful, someone with that silhouette just has to be and if he can wax a car that’s not even his with that level of concentration and reverence? Yeah, she’s definitely jealous of the car. And if Dean’s statement of devotion is anything to go by there’s probably a great personality to go with those mile long legs.

There’s something unbelievably world weary about Dean, like the weight of every universe is on his shoulders, which Melanie can’t understand. If she was on a road trip with a hot guy in a hot car the last thing she’d be doing is sitting in a bar looking like she’d never had a good time her entire existence. 

They both watch Tony neglect to wipe down the bar and opt to read the newspaper, because Tony is diehard and still gets the paper delivered. They sit in silence, but it’s not weird, it’s almost companionable. Other than Tony, she and Dean are the only ones in the bar, their breathing and the rustle of Tony thumbing through the local news bouncing off the walls along with the ticking of the sports themed clock on the wall, different balls in place of the numbers, hockey stick and baseball bat for the hands. She’s dicking around on her phone like usual and Dean is snagging the obituary section now that Tony is done with it. She’s lost track of the time, but she’s one her third beer when she hears Dean rap his knuckles on the bar, she looks up and sees him tap two thick, blunt fingers against the scratched wood top. His fingernails look painful, bitten down to the quick, pink and a little bit raw around the cuticles, she can see the rough spots of healing callouses and she wonders what he does for a living; construction or field work maybe, something blue collar and sexy. She notices the light tan of his skin, the spread of freckles going down his neck disappearing into the collar of his plaid overshirt and thinks about Dean working out in the blazing heat, sweating and squinting against the sun. 

Tony slides a fresh beer to Dean plus another right as Melanie hears the bar door open. Tony doesn’t greet whoever it is and that tells her it’s another stranger and sure enough, she turns and sees Sam. Somehow, Dean had known Sam would come waltzing in the door at that moment so he’d ordered him a beer and it sorta weirds her out because she hasn’t seen Dean reach for his phone even once, it’s been sitting on the bar almost a full foot away from his hand and the screen hasn't lit up at all. Dean doesn’t turn around. Sam nudges him, tries to get him to scoot down one space so he can sit, but Dean just shakes his head an points to the stool on the other side of him. She notices that even though Dean is practically lounging his body is oriented very obviously towards Sam, in fact he just about has his back to her now. Dean uses his beer to nudge the other at Sam and keeps reading the obits silently. Sam downs the entire bottle in one go, Melanie imagines his throat working, bets that it’s all kinds of sexy, but Dean is blocking her view so she’ll never know for sure. Sam echoes Dean’s earlier rapping of knuckles on the bar, ordering a second. He sips this one at a normal pace, his eyes flitting around the bar like he’s casing the joint, like he need to know where all the exits are and where the pool cues are hanging. 

Sam’s body language is lightyears away from Dean’s open body sprawl. He’s a big guy, even bigger than she’d thought from afar, his knees knock at the underside of the bar once he gets settled, his hands make his bottle of beer look perversely child-sized, his shoulders are curled in like he’s overly aware of how big he is and desperately wants to apologize for the space he takes up and politely give it back. Dean, on the other hand, is still loose limbed and wide, _manspreading_ she thinks to herself, as if Dean is trying to make himself bigger than he is even though he’s in no way a small man.

Sam has quiet and calm aura. Not like Dean who was friendly and outgoing from the jump, but also almost feral somehow behind smiling bottle green eyes. Sam must have felt her staring because he turned his face to her fully, but it was Dean who spoke. “Sam this Melanie, Melanie, this is Sam,” Dean said, his eyes never drifting away from the paper. Did he also feel her staring at Sam? Is he just showing off good manners? Or did he just sense Sam’s attention shifting from nothing in particular to her specifically. 

“Nice to meet you, Melanie,” Sam’s voice is kind of soft, like he doesn’t use it much, like if someone doesn’t oil up his human interaction skills regularly they’ll rust. He really is as good looking as she thought, hair she had dismissed as disheveled from lack of caring and car washing in the middle of the day is actually very carefully cut and styled to look like it isn’t at all and his eyes are swirling with color, green-blue-brown-grey and back again. For a moment she swears she sees a flash of golden yellow, but then Sam smiles, pulls out a pair of dimples that she briefly thinks about licking and no, just green-blue-brown-grey. Just. 

In another life, Melanie would be out with a girlfriend and they’d be flipping a coin to see which one of them would get Dean and which one would get Sam, figuring heads or tails was still a winner. In another universe, Melanie would undo her topmost shirt buttons and ask them if they both wanted to get out of here with her, fill her up from both ends, wear her out and leave her sore. In this world, the world she lives in right now, the world where she’s been pining for Tony since she was just out of her teens but has never had the balls to make a move, she pictures them driving down the highway together. Sam’s long fingers crawling up the inseam of Dean’s jeans, Dean’s tongue between his teeth as he curls Sam’s hair around his fingers with the hand not steering his Baby, safety versus satisfaction warring in his mind. She pictures Sam’s wide, pink mouth making filthy promises to Dean.

She feels her face go hot as she hears Dean slide the newspaper over towards Sam, watches as he bends his ring finger and knocks the metal band around it against a picture of a youngish guy, too young to be dead in Melanie’s opinion, but the world is fucked up, full of cancer and serial killers.

“You think maybe that might be him?” Dean asks. Sam doesn’t even blink.

“You think it’s him,” Dean says. Sam blinks, but doesn’t look up. 

“Yeah, I think it’s him, too,” Dean affirms to a still stoic Sam.

Melanie is suddenly very aware that Sam and Dean are strangers drifting through town talking about a dead person that they clearly don’t know personally. It’s like a cold finger tracing down her spine. Why is Dean asking about a dead man? Why is Sam just sitting there, quiet, but with a small furrow in his brow that looks like sad determination. Who are these guys?

“Who _are_ you guys? And why are you reading my town’s obituary section like it’s Soap Opera Digest?” Melanie feels a bit hysterical as she realizes that Tony isn’t where she last saw him. He’s probably in the back getting something, too early for the bar-back to be in so he has to prep for happy hour on his own. She remembers noticing Dean’s scars and crooked nose, remembers how soft and silent Sam’s footfalls were as he saddled up to the bar; he should’ve clomped in, big as he is, but he had almost glided. It’s amazing what you ignore about really attractive people. _Ted Bundy was very handsome and charismatic, you know_ her mother’s voice warns from the back of her brain.

Dean looks at her, confused, “I’m Dean, this is Sam,” he speaks slowly, like Melanie might be challenged in some way or possibly drunker than a few beers should’ve made her, “we’ve been through this, sweetheart.” 

“That’s only one answer and I’m honestly starting to doubt the validity of it. Why are you asking about,” she peers over at the paper, “Justin Moorehouse if you’re just passing through to wash your car?” 

She hears a muffled thump and sees Dean’s leg flinch. Sam had probably kicked his ankle. It was so subtle, if she wasn't already wary of them she wouldn't have caught it. “Melanie, we’re FBI agents, we’re looking into a possible wrongful death in the area, the body was…” Sam sighs, rearranges his face so it’s nothing but sorrow and regret, “it wasn’t in the best condition, so we’re investigating possibilities.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry?” Sam says, taken aback that she was so forcefully dismissive.

“Nope, not buying it. There’s no way you’re feds, not dressed like that, not downing beers in the middle of the day, and no way you don’t already have an ID on someone if you’re investigating their murder. Try again or I’ll scream.”

Dean shakes his head and laughs. “I always knew one day we’d try that schtick on someone with a brain.” Just then Tony is the one who screams. Sam and Dean are on their feet and running towards the back room in a half second, Melanie is on their six and when they skid to a halt just inside the doorway Dean forces her to stay behind him. Tony is against the wall, he looks like he’s straining to move, pinned there like bug. Across the room, in lazy pursuit, is the hazy image of the guy from the newspaper. “Man, this is the part I’ll always hate: Melanie, Sam is my brother, ghosts and monsters are real, he and I hunt them, Justin here was killed in the back alley of the bar and he’s been picking off drunk patrons for the past week. Looks like Tony might be next, so grab that margarita salt and toss it to me, yeah?”

It all comes out in a rush, but Melanie only registers one thing. _Brother._ Huh. There goes her roadside daydream about them and maybe even her threesome fantasy. Dean might be protecting her and talking to her, but his body is still angled toward Sam. She’s been on the receiving end of the kind of body language Sam is getting, but certainly not by a family member. 

Maybe the threesome wouldn’t be off the table. Assuming she survives this. Melanie thinks that all things considered a margarita sounds great either way. 

“Melanie!” Dean snaps at her, “look alive or we won’t be for much longer.”

Right as Melanie is reaching for the salt she hears a crash, Sam is knocked against another wall, the gun he’d apparently pulled clattering across the floor. “Sam!” Dean yells, but that's all he can do because he’s pinned to the spot. 

Sam is panting in pain, he looks like a puppet, like his arms are being pulled from their sockets “Dean, the necklace Tony is wearing, look familiar?” Melanie notices it, too. Around Tony’s neck is a coin on a length of brown cord, a penny, the kind you get at some train stations, flattened out with a shape punched through. This one is a simple square. It was on Justin in his obituary picture and now it’s on Tony. 

“Tony?” Melanie asks quietly. Great first Sam and Dean might be serial killers, now maybe Tony is? Boy can she pick ‘em. 

“I found it outside the other day, I thought it looked cool, but not something anyone would miss, so I put it on.”

Justin’s ghost isn’t moving, he’s just watching them. “You just want what’s yours, don’t you Justin?” Sam asks. The ghost nods. “Let Tony go and he’ll give it to you. Then you can rest.”

Tony drops to the floor, no longer held in place by the spirit, but he’d still been straining against it. His hand shakes as he pulls the necklace off and holds it out to the ghost. Justin flickers out of sight then reappears right in front of Tony, fingers grabbing for the necklace. The second he puts it over his own head, the very moment it rests against his chest Sam and Dean can both move, Melanie knows this because Dean is immediately at Sam’s side. Right then another ghost appears. A woman. She’s about Justin’s age and she smooths his hair back off his forehead, presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth before grabbing his hand and leading him away. They evaporate into nothing before they even reach the back door that leads to the alley.

Melanie is a mirror of Dean, rushing to Tony’s side, checking him over for any damage. By the time she looks up Sam and Dean are gone and the rumble of a freshly washed Impala is fading down the road. She pictures Sam’s hands and Dean’s smile.

Brothers. Yeah, right.


End file.
